Chaim Soutine ~ The Little Pastry Chef linked to Bill Cumming

The Little Pastry Chef (to the left) and Portrait of Bill Cumming (above)– another unlikely duo here at Fifty Two Pieces. Portrait of Bill Cumming by Morris Graves hangs just around the corner and half way down the corridor from The Little Pastry Chef. Some think these two paintings were separated at birth or at least at the easel. Bruce Guenther, Chief Curator at the Portland Art Museum has been heard saying that Morris Graves followed in the Expressionist footsteps of Chaim Soutine with this portrait. Cumming is certainly painted with a similar elongated curving body. And the expression – Cumming might be considered to be looking bemused or a more vernacular saying about what's up with this fellow artist. Spend a moment in the gallery, look at the brush strokes, check out the paint color and ask Cumming yourself about life, his thoughts, what he was experiencing. Thinking about Graves' work, portraits are not unrepresented but are certainly not his usual choice of format. We'll probably never know why he chose to paint this younger artist's portrait. Cumming had teamed up with Graves, and the rest of the Northwest School – Guy Anderson, Kenneth and Margaret Callahan, Mark Tobey, and Lubin Petric. Maybe Graves was fascinated with Cumming's style, his love of music that he both played and composed, his love of poetry that he both read and wrote. Or perhaps it was Graves wonderment when he thought about Cumming having married seven times or finally dealing with his lingering tuberculosis from his Christian Scientist heritage. Whatever it was that prompted this painting, we are left with this unusual portrait around the corner and linked to The Little Pastry Chef. To read more about Bill Cumming and Morris Graves, take a look at "Cumming, William (b. 1917): The Willie Nelson of Northwest Painting". It is well written and follows Cumming through the Northwest as he becomes both politically active and a well known artist.

Chaim Soutine ~ The Little Pastry Chef as seen by others

Chaim Soutine's The Little Pastry Chef is one of my favorite paintings in the Portland Art Museum. Sometimes I think it's because of the wry expression on the baker's face. Other times I'm taken with the brushstrokes and intense colors that Soutine used to create this image. In any case, I'm always excited to see the image elsewhere than on the wall of the museum. Here is a sampling of what I've found.

Searching the internet and you'll find this image on Flickr. Dalylab's comment that perhaps the two had been separated at birth was spot on.

Someone else was also smitten with The Little Pastry Chef. Doren Robbins has published a book of poetry with an image of our man Soutine's painting on the cover. On his website, Robbins has this to say about himself ... "A pantry man, broiler chef, book store clerk, and carpenter from 1967-1990, he has taught Creative Writing and English since 1991." When I mentioned this book of poetry to the manager of the framing shop at Art Media, Mel said that the Soutine painting was one of her very favorites.

Soutine's art has also inspired the creation of music. John Danley created this original work for guitar "Felures Dans Le Visible". Google translates this to "Cracks in the Visible". Admittedly, The Little Pastry Chef isn't included here, but I was struck by the beauty of the music and that it was inspired by Soutine.

Chaim Soutine ~ The Little Pastry Chef and other Pastry Chefs

Chaim Soutine painted a number of other pastry chefs in addition to The Little Pastry Chef at the Portland Art Museum. The one shown on the left from the Kunstmuseum Basel is a small almost square portrait (26 x 20 in). The chef seems to be both collapsing and distorted at the same time much like the chef above. He does seem much younger than the one in Portland and the painting's title ranges from The Pastry Chef to Baker Boy. Soutine painted it in 1919. The one shown below carries the same title as The Little Pastry Chef here in Portland and was painted in 1922, a year later.

Later in 1927, Soutine evidently painted yet another pastry chef and its title is remarkably The Pastry Chef. Like the other chefs, this one's right shoulder is tilted slightly up. Unlike the other chef paintings, there's a lack of red here. The one from Portland punches red with the use of red in the background. Each of the other two chefs are holding something red. By 1927, red seems to have dropped from Soutine's palette as a front running color. This definitely seems to be calmest of the compositions, the one with the least churning abstraction and build up of color.

Chaim Soutine ~ The Little Pastry Chef

This week's image here at Fifty Two Pieces is Chaim Soutine's The Little Pastry Chef. Painted in 1921, it shows a pastry chef with a wry look standing very near a chair. Some say he would have preferred sitting there while Soutine painted him. That could explain the expression on his face or perhaps it showed the other question -- why would you possibility want to paint me? At the Portland Art Museum, this painting is straight ahead of you as you come up the stairs to enter the Center for Modern and Contemporary Art. The flaming red will warm you on a chilly day. As you get nearer you see that the red is made up of a myriad of colors, the same ones in that white jacket and hat the pastry chef is wearing. More about Soutine and The Little Pastry Chef later this week.

If you haven't seen this Soutine painting in person you should plan a trip to the Portland Art Museum. At about twenty feet from the top of the stairs, you'll be in the center of six major pieces of modern art.

On the left –– Gauguin's Garden View, Rouen
At a slight diagonal on the left –– Monet's Waterliles
Straight ahead –– The Little Pastry Chef
On the right –– Cezanne's Paris: Quai de Bercy - La Halle aux Vin
At a diagonal on the right -- Brancusi's Muse
Just past the Muse –– Picasso's Head of Woman

And around the corner from the Gauguin you'll find Van Gogh's Ox Cart.